Climateering tech: acid-washing rocks

A new paper in Environmental Science and Technology proposes a method of easing greenhouse CO₂ by treating volcanic rocks with acid drawn from the ocean. The process, already dubbed the "House process" after its author, Kurt House of Harvard University, bypasses the geological carbon cycle but would still take centuries to be effective. Whereas the geological carbon cycle depends on rainwater dissolving CO₂ to form carbonic acid, which in turn brings carbonates to the sea, the House process pulls HCl out of seawater, leaving a lower-alkalinity environment suitable for bicarbonate rather than carbonate. This would still pull CO₂ from the air but be kinder to living things in the ocean, which deposit carbonate minerals on the seafloor for tectonic recycling. A discussion of the paper on the Green Car Congress blog goes deeper than anywhere else I've seen. But this proposal is the kind of thing we'll keep seeing as we gear up for the age of climateering.